(16-04-2017 04:36 PM)Marozz Wrote: I speak Dutch. I lived in the Netherlands from the late 80's till 98. It was a difficult language to learn, especially, as pointed out by Sturm, the Dutch love to speak English. It was in the days before everyone had internet, so I bought a good English / Dutch dictionary and "read" the local newspapers each day. My motivation was college. To attend art college I needed Dutch. It took a while but I got there in the end.

That's really cool!
Are you a freelance artist or do you work for an organization?

(16-04-2017 04:36 PM)Marozz Wrote: I speak Dutch. I lived in the Netherlands from the late 80's till 98. It was a difficult language to learn, especially, as pointed out by Sturm, the Dutch love to speak English. It was in the days before everyone had internet, so I bought a good English / Dutch dictionary and "read" the local newspapers each day. My motivation was college. To attend art college I needed Dutch. It took a while but I got there in the end.

That's really cool!
Are you a freelance artist or do you work for an organization?

I studied fine arts, so freelance. It also meant lot's of "partying" - which didn't help with the language but was great fun

(16-04-2017 05:04 PM)Marozz Wrote: I studied fine arts, so freelance. It also meant lot's of "partying" - which didn't help with the language but was great fun

I've been back and forth on whether or not I want to try doing freelance. I went into a few different art courses and am planning to enroll with Watts Atelier.

Are you a portrait, landscape, or still life painter? Or all of the above... XD

Go for what you "really" want. I do landscape / still life influenced by media, what's happening in the world (the bad things). I use lots of black so, drawing using charcoal, pastels, ink and graphite would be my main thing. In college I really enjoyed etching. Painting, I like oils.

(16-04-2017 05:10 PM)Larai19 Wrote: I've been back and forth on whether or not I want to try doing freelance. I went into a few different art courses and am planning to enroll with Watts Atelier.

Are you a portrait, landscape, or still life painter? Or all of the above... XD

Go for what you "really" want. I do landscape / still life influenced by media, what's happening in the world (the bad things). I use lots of black so, drawing using charcoal, pastels, ink and graphite would be my main thing. In college I really enjoyed etching. Painting, I like oils.

I'm a portrait artist myself. I never really deal with landscape unless it's a background... I'm not very good as it stands. I lack a lot of discipline that an artist needs so I do it casually.
My favorite mediums are oils and charcoal, I'm too nervous to work with ink.

Watch German TV. YouTube has bunches. You will understand a lot from context and learn the way kids learn.

I used to teach German without ever using translations. I used pictures instead. But you need a teacher or an internet or dvd course for that. It encourages faster fluency by eliminating all kinds of thought processes.

There are a lot of decent programs out there...

Science is the process we've designed to be responsible for generating our best guess as to what the fuck is going on. Girly Man

Having traveled extensively and lived in non-English speaking countries for a quarter of my life (including Oz, to steal SYZ's joke), I've found that you can get by by learning just two things for any language:
1) Hello
2)

Reminds me of a favourite Drop the Dead Donkey moment, where George is late for work and catches a taxi and the drivers turns around and shows him a handwritten sign which says "I'm from Bulgaria". When George duly proceeds to talk loudly and slowly, the guy shows him another handwritten sign, which says "And I'm deaf". When he later crashes the car (natch!) the paramedics do the exact same thing

(Even funnier, well to me at least, is that before starting the car, the supposedly Bulgarian driver makes the sign of the cross. Only, in the Orthodox churches we touch our right shoulder before the left one. How's that for nitpicking )

(16-04-2017 06:15 PM)DLJ Wrote: Having traveled extensively and lived in non-English speaking countries for a quarter of my life (including Oz, to steal SYZ's joke), I've found that you can get by by learning just two things for any language:
1) Hello
2)